Dubai, taxis, tipping

It's a hard life travelling the world but someone's got to do it...

After a 3.30am start, a 7-hour flight and some final farewells, we finally made it. The Emirates flight was everything we expected it to be and the food, service and entertainment was top notch. Having flown Ryanair exclusively for the last few years it was a real step up - I mean there was leg room and everything. Not that this would have helped the Indian guy I was sitting next to who was in the middle of a 24-hour, connection-filled marathon from Boston, USA to southern India.



Dubai is impressive. Flying in at night we got to see the full neon splendour of the emirate, I haven't been to Las Vegas but I imagine it looks very similar - with less mosques. Upon leaving the plane the heat really hits you - and it's humid too. We arrived at about 7pm and it must have been pushing 35c - knew I wouldn't need that second fleece! The airport looks like a cross between a sheikh's desert palace and Lakeside - and puts Heathrow to shame.

After arriving quite late on Saturday and feeling a bit like the living dead we stumbled into our room, in fact I was so dazed I mistakenly ended up tipping the doorman 8 quid!

With only one full day here and now pursued by other hotel staff wanting a tip we went into full 'city-break' mode and spent Sunday trying to cram everything into the litle time we had left - so much for the relaxing stop-off!

Unfortunately Dubai is much more widely spread out than we thought and we ended up spending most of the day being driven around by mute cabbies (!!!) in plush air-conditioned taxis.

Our first stop was the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel, nestled on the shores of the crystal, blue waters of the Arabian Gulf, it costs more than 10,000 Dirhams a night to stay - I'm not sure of the exact exchange rate but suffice to say it's ridiculously expensive - in fact it's so exclusive that when the taxi pulled up at the front of the hotel we were told we couldn't even go near it without a booking!

Undeterred we walked along to Jumeirah beach to sunbathe with the rest of the rabble. Unusually for Dubai the beach is quite undeveloped and as a result is free of the rampant commercialism on display everywhere else. The sand is golden and the sea is like a warm bath. We had both covered ourselves in factor 30 but the heat from the sun was relentless and we soon found ourselves in another taxi.

"To the Gold Souk", I said

"...." said the mute cabbie.

He then proceeded to drive us as fast as possible across the desert with little regard for traffic signs or other vehicles. The Dubai tourist board advise that because of the massive amount of immigration into the emirate (80% of the population are from somewhere else), driving can be quite an unpredictable experience. We discovered this first hand when our taxi almost careened into the back of another car.

Still we made it to the Gold Souk. And man, it souked - everything was closed, we were constantly harassed from people trying to sell us pashminas, and all of a sudden there were no taxis!

After making it back some hours later we had a dip in the pool and I finally got to get a few pictures from the hotel roof - the tall tower on the right of the picture is the Burj Tower and when it's finally built it will be the world's tallest skyscraper, i think it's about half-way there now.

Anyway got to dash - another plane to catch and India awaits....